Family |
Amaranthaceae
Noaea mucronata
(Forssk.) Asch. & Schweinf.
Noaea mucronata (Forssk.) Asch. & Schweinf.
(First published in Ill. Fl. Égypte: 131; 1887. Treated in Nouvelle Flore du Liban et de la Syrie, vol. 1, p. 435, Pl. CXLVII nº 3; 1966)
• Life-form & habit: Rigid shrub, 30 – 40 cm, glabrous, much branched from the base. Trunk and older branches grey, fissured; young twigs flexuous, yellowish-green, papillose-scabrid.
• Leaves: Alternate, linear, 6 – 22 mm, straight or flexuose, rigid, acute and pungent; floral leaves short, scarious at the base, mucronate.
• Inflorescence & flowers: Solitary in the axils of lower branch leaves, sessile, subtended by two bracteoles equaling or exceeding the floral leaf. Perianth 4 mm, 5-sepaled, membranous-margined, keeled. Stamens 5. In fruit, perianth expanded into unequal membranous wings, white or purplish.
• Fruit: Achene enclosed in the winged perianth.
• Phenology: Flowers July – August; fruits autumn and winter.
• Habitat & elevation: Dry steppe and montane slopes, from plains up to alpine belts.
• Lebanese distribution: Beqaa (Baalbeck), Hermel, Col des Cèdres, Jabal Sannine, Les Cèdres, Qornet es-Saouda, Anti-Lebanon, south to Damascus plain and Palmyra.
• Native range: Afghanistan, Algeria, Cyprus, East Aegean Islands, Egypt, Greece, Iran, Iraq, Kriti, Lebanon-Syria, Libya, Morocco, North Caucasus, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Sinai, Transcaucasus, Turkmenistan, Turkey, Uzbekistan (POWO).
• ⚠️ Taxonomic note: Often variable in habit from erect shrubs in lowlands to cushion-forming montane types. Boissier distinguished var. humilis (later raised to subspecies rank) from typical N. mucronata.